TX - 'Lori Ruff', Longview, WhtFem UP9863, *General Discussion and Theories* #5

[Hank36]

One admittedly macabre notion that popped in my head was to idly wonder exactly where she'd shot herself. Supposedly women are less likely then men to shoot themselves in the head, under the theory that women are more concerned with presenting an attractive face.

I can't remember reading where "Lori" wounded herself, but I just now wondered whether she may have shot herself in the head for exactly the reason most women do not--to prevent identification from either morgue photos or dental records.

Kind of a far-flung theory, I'll admit. Maybe I'm just still haunted by images I once encountered of a girl who very carefully arranged a spot for herself in the woods and then shot herself in the heart--although I still wonder why "Lori's" death wasn't investigated as a homicide, and autopsied. As I've also mentioned, if I learned anything from the film "JFK", it's that it was supposed to be illegal to remove the body of a homicide victim from Texas without an autopsy.

By the way--has it ever been revealed where her two-year-old daughter was when "Lori" killed herself? Even without the whole question of her identity, there are certain basic questions about her suicide that have never really been public addressed.

"You hated her, criticized her parenting skills, you tried to take out a cease and desist order against her, your son was arrested for hitting her, you slam her for relatively banal behavior such as dozing off at parties, not wanting her photo in the newspaper, and wanting to buy an EZ Bake Oven...and now she's been found shot to death in your driveway. No, nothing suspicious here."

 

[awillis0513]

I'm not sure if this was the same in Texas...

I was adopted in 1986 (soon after my birth). Because I had a closed adoption, I wasn't given a name until after my birth certificate was issued. My original birth certificate says, "Infant Swanson." However, after my formal adoption eight months later, a new birth certificate was issued with my "new" name. My thought is that she was able to order a new copy of a birth certificate that had all of her relevant vitals but with the new name. My reissued birth certificate has the names of my adoptive parents, so perhaps she was able to just omit this information.

Thanks!

 

[sunnynz]

One admittedly macabre notion that popped in my head was to idly wonder exactly where she'd shot herself. Supposedly women are less likely then men to shoot themselves in the head, under the theory that women are more concerned with presenting an attractive face.

I can't remember reading where "Lori" wounded herself, but I just now wondered whether she may have shot herself in the head for exactly the reason most women do not--to prevent identification from either morgue photos or dental records.

Kind of a far-flung theory, I'll admit. Maybe I'm just still haunted by images I once encountered of a girl who very carefully arranged a spot for herself in the woods and then shot herself in the heart--although I still wonder why "Lori's" death wasn't investigated as a homicide, and autopsied. As I've also mentioned, if I learned anything from the film "JFK", it's that it was supposed to be illegal to remove the body of a homicide victim from Texas without an autopsy.

"

Her Namus report says regarding the condition of the body "Recognizable face".

Many online articles mention a gunshot wound to the head, or in some cases a 'shotgun' wound to the head. (Who knows whether that is accurate info or just lazy journalism).

 

[awillis0513]

I apologize, I have been AWOL due to that job I have.

A few thoughts I've had lately...also, I'm not entirely caught up on the other comments, so I apologize if I'm repeating anything.

I stumbled across a more recent picture and information of FLEK's widower. I feel like in many ways he has come to peace or has at least moved on from this situation, that has brought me a moral dilemma: At what point do we honor the interests (or lack-of-interests) of the family?; At what point do we honor the wishes of FLEK, who clearly wanted her past to be forgotten?; And, if the family knows her identity (or perhaps even Abbott), and the public was so called upon to help with this finding, when does the family owe an answer to the public, even if not a specific answer?

These are all bigger questions. I tend to be of the camp that believes that she has not been identified, at least not in a way that fully proves who she was beyond doubt. (Question: What is the requirement of DNA markers to make a proper match?) I think if she had been, the postings on Namus would be taken down, as to not waste government resources. (At least, I hope it would be.)

All of these questions led me to remember this practice in the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

The Right to be Forgotten says individuals have the fundamental right to "determine the development of their life in an autonomous way, without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past." For those of us that are true crime fans, it's notable that there are cases in the UK and Canada where individuals who had previously committed a crime was allowed to change their identity after serving their sentence. So, at what point do we apply this to FLEK/BST/Jane Doe?

I'm really curious about the cases that were uncovered earlier. While my gut says that she was a victim of a crime rather than a perpetrator, it's always possible that I'm seriously wrong. I see a lot of her personality traits present in women that I know who have been in a violent relationship with a man. I have always thought it was telling that she tried to be younger at the age she changed her identity. At that point in my life, I would have at least said I was 21 so that I could buy alcohol. (This is also why I don't think she used a professional identity broker, because she clearly didn't pass as younger for long.) So, she wanted to relive those early adult years, where so many of us experience terrible things, or make terrible mistakes.

Just some thoughts. My opinions.

 

[sunnynz]

Or she knew the Turner family to some degree, or she was helped by a professional who would have found that identity for her in a heartbeat.

I think in a internet-less age it would have been quite a laborious task matching up births and deaths in different states unless you knew of the story somehow. I also think she must have known Becky's DoB to be able to order the birth cert in the first place. Surely, when a requesting a birth record, you'd have to at least know the date of birth? You couldn't just call up and say "please may I have a copy of my birth cert, I am BST and was born in 1969" and not be asked for further details. Surely!

I sent a facebook message to the woman who had signed the receipt when Kern County sent the BST certificate to FLEK to ask her exactly what the process was. She hasn't read my message - facebook's message system is unfortunately flawed int his way, she probably doesn't even know my message is there. If anyone has another way to contact this woman then I am happy to do it and get these questions in front of her.

 

[sunnynz]

I apologize, I have been AWOL due to that job I have.

A few thoughts I've had lately...also, I'm not entirely caught up on the other comments, so I apologize if I'm repeating anything.

I stumbled across a more recent picture and information of FLEK's widower. I feel like in many ways he has come to peace or has at least moved on from this situation, that has brought me a moral dilemma: At what point do we honor the interests (or lack-of-interests) of the family?; At what point do we honor the wishes of FLEK, who clearly wanted her past to be forgotten?; And, if the family knows her identity (or perhaps even Abbott), and the public was so called upon to help with this finding, when does the family owe an answer to the public, even if not a specific answer?

These are all bigger questions. I tend to be of the camp that believes that she has not been identified, at least not in a way that fully proves who she was beyond doubt. (Question: What is the requirement of DNA markers to make a proper match?) I think if she had been, the postings on Namus would be taken down, as to not waste government resources. (At least, I hope it would be.)

All of these questions led me to remember this practice in the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

The Right to be Forgotten says individuals have the fundamental right to "determine the development of their life in an autonomous way, without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past." For those of us that are true crime fans, it's notable that there are cases in the UK and Canada where individuals who had previously committed a crime was allowed to change their identity after serving their sentence. So, at what point do we apply this to FLEK/BST/Jane Doe?

I very much agree with this. I am extremely curious to know who she is but at the end of the day if the family explicitly said for people to back off/they knew her identity and didn't want it revealed then I think I would honour that as it's really none of my business.

My point of view is that until that's clearly stated then I'll carry on searching. My two interests in finding her identity are 1) so her daughter can know who her mother was, and 2) to satisfy my need to see an intriguing mystery solved. I really have no care here nor there about social security fraud and preventing that as I'm not in the US. Point #1 is really up to the family to make a call on, and point #2 is irrelevant to the family. So there you go, my opinion... For now, I keep looking!

 

[Fukiyama]

I sent a facebook message to the woman who had signed the receipt when Kern County sent the BST certificate to FLEK to ask her exactly what the process was. She hasn't read my message - facebook's message system is unfortunately flawed int his way, she probably doesn't even know my message is there. If anyone has another way to contact this woman then I am happy to do it and get these questions in front of her.

Unless you are friends with someone, private messages on FB now go directly to the spam folder that FB added to the system awhile ago. It sucks, but it is what it is. Gotta love FB fixing all the time stuff that wasn't broken. As far as I know, FB never announced the change, so I didn't know I had a spam folder until I found it when looking at my private message page. Private messages have also been combined with the chat feature, which makes it even more confusing.

Re: FLEK's death shot, if she did shoot herself in the head, I doubt it would have been to destroy identifying features like dentals. Unless she managed some weird way of getting the gun behind her head or just used a shotgun, bullet wounds make a mess going out the back, not going in the front. If it says her face was recognizable after death even with a head wound, that's why. Small hole in front.

 

[awillis0513]

But the note page actually says the word MONTHS. There is no MOS.

Here, I flipped the text and doubled the size of the image so we can see it better:

Hahaha, it shows how easy it is to forget a note I've clearly looked at a million times.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sunnynz]

Unless you are friends with someone, private messages on FB now go directly to the spam folder that FB added to the system awhile ago. It sucks, but it is what it is. Gotta love FB fixing all the time stuff that wasn't broken. As far as I know, FB never announced the change, so I didn't know I had a spam folder until I found it when looking at my private message page. Private messages have also been combined with the chat feature, which makes it even more confusing.

.

Yes, agree so annoying. I also messaged Andy Anderson (director of Positive ID film) and a woman from WA who looks more like FLEK than anyone else I've seen and is connected to the Howder family. To know that they probably don't even know about the messages is beyond frustrating. (There was a point in time a few weeks back where it looked like they had read them but apparently that was a glitch in messenger and now they've gone back to showing as unread).

 

[FrankieB]

Sometimes I fear the lack of autopsy, cremation, narrow minded detective work and general lack of mainstream interest will make this case remain a mystery forever. Public interest in Jonbenét never waned and now the media is exploding, interviews, books, specials. Imagine if the people who knew Lori were interviewed again, or some new pictures were revealed. This case is fascinating for me but it might not be for the general public...

 

[Gardener1850]

Sometimes I fear the lack of autopsy, cremation, narrow minded detective work and general lack of mainstream interest will make this case remain a mystery forever. Public interest in Jonbenét never waned and now the media is exploding, interviews, books, specials. Imagine if the people who knew Lori were interviewed again, or some new pictures were revealed. This case is fascinating for me but it might not be for the general public...

BBM.

Imagine if the people who knew Lori were even interviewed ONCE. Most people who knew her were not questioned at all. It's a big hole in this case, IMO. Sure, she was determined enough to keep her secret from her husband and in-laws from 2003-2010 but who can tell if she did that prior to meeting Blake? She may have broken down and told someone something under pressure. She may have confided in a pastor. It would only take one person who got to know her well enough to learn something or to notice something about her we don't currently know. I want to know if she told the same story from 1988 to 2010 or if her story changed throughout the years. Did she always say she was from Scottsdale? Did she always say she was the daughter of a failed stockbroker?

 

[llywrch]

Gotta love FB fixing all the time stuff that wasn't broken. As far as I know, FB never announced the change, so I didn't know I had a spam folder until I found it when looking at my private message page. Private messages have also been combined with the chat feature, which makes it even more confusing.

Another reason I'm glad I never opened a Facebook account.

 

[grayley]

Unrelated to IDing of FLEK, but I was inspired by a couple of posters who said that stealing a dead child's identity was commonplace, so I googled it and wow -- it seems to have happened a lot up to and through the late 80s.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4130949/MP-used-dead-childs-birth-certificate
https://www.sundaypost.com/news/bro...th-certificate-stamps-prevent-identity-fraud/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Birth-certificates-used-fake-identities.html

And then I found this wiki article, which I've never even seen posted here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(identity_theft)

This is so creepy!!! It's step by step what FLEK did.

 

[sunnynz]

I sent a facebook message to the woman who had signed the receipt when Kern County sent the BST certificate to FLEK to ask her exactly what the process was. She hasn't read my message - facebook's message system is unfortunately flawed int his way, she probably doesn't even know my message is there. If anyone has another way to contact this woman then I am happy to do it and get these questions in front of her.

Update: I found a more recently updated profile for the Kern County woman so I just forwarded my message on to that profile - the one I originally sent it to must be an old out of date one.

 

[Katinka]

Update: I found a more recently updated profile for the Kern County woman so I just forwarded my message on to that profile - the one I originally sent it to must be an old out of date one.

Can you post an image of the receipt? The link that was posted on the documents site is no longer working.

 

[newfiedee]

But the note page actually says the word MONTHS. There is no MOS.

Here, I flipped the text and doubled the size of the image so we can see it better:

Is it possible that she was writhing 40 then 2 as to mean 42 months.Could she have been refering to the length of time to pay of of bankruptcy . Ben perkins was a bankruptcy lawyer...cra? could it be California Revenue Agency? just a thought

 

[marinmarais]

402 Months... it can be: 40 years, 2 months. The real BST died in 1971... 2011 is actually 40 years after her dead... maybe when FLEK wrote this she was doing the math how many years and months had passed since that moment.

Regarding the other page from FLEK's strongbox, the first Idea that I have when I saw it is that she was also doing the math to match her actual age and the age given in her ID's... i don't know...

 

[llywrch]

I'm repeating a thought that has been mentioned in this forum in the past, but it's been a while since it's been brought up. If for no other reason than to keep people thinking about it -- either as a clue to LEK's birth name or her personality.

In every other case of identity theft that I've heard of, the perpetrator simply assumes the name & as much of the other's history as reasonably possible. But in this case, once LEK began the change over she chose a whole new name for herself. As far as anyone knows, she used the name "Becky Sue Turner" very briefly: once to get her Idaho ID, a second time in a Texas court room to change her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. And maybe a third time when she obtained BST's birth certificate in Bakersfield. If any name for her new identity would work, why didn't she remain BST? AFAIK, no "Howto change your identity" handbook suggests performing this additional step. In other words, she picked that name after some thought & thus for some reason.

What was that reason she picked the name "Lori Erica Kennedy" for herself? Did it have some special significance for her?

There has been some discussion of the significance of this name in older threads. One person noted that it was a common birth name in the 1960s. Another poster suggested her birth name likely began with an "L", & she picked Lori to handle accidents where she began to accidentally sign her birth name, & could recover by writing "Lori". Still another noted that "Erica" was the name of a character of a popular tv soap opera in the late 1980s. And saving the most trivial observation for last, "Kennedy" is a common Irish-American family name, very few of whom are even distantly related to the president.

If we knew more about her, I would eagerly make some intelligent guesses, or even suggest some plausible theories, why she picked this name. But I've tried to be cautious about this case, & except for noting that this name was her intentional choice, & must have some significance to her, I'll leave it to the rest of you to speculate further.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

I'm repeating a thought that has been mentioned in this forum in the past, but it's been a while since it's been brought up. If for no other reason than to keep people thinking about it -- either as a clue to LEK's birth name or her personality.

In every other case of identity theft that I've heard of, the perpetrator simply assumes the name & as much of the other's history as reasonably possible. But in this case, once LEK began the change over she chose a whole new name for herself. As far as anyone knows, she used the name "Becky Sue Turner" very briefly: once to get her Idaho ID, a second time in a Texas court room to change her name to Lori Erica Kennedy. And maybe a third time when she obtained BST's birth certificate in Bakersfield. If any name for her new identity would work, why didn't she remain BST? AFAIK, no "Howto change your identity" handbook suggests performing this additional step. In other words, she picked that name after some thought & thus for some reason.

What was that reason she picked the name "Lori Erica Kennedy" for herself? Did it have some special significance for her?

There has been some discussion of the significance of this name in older threads. One person noted that it was a common birth name in the 1960s. Another poster suggested her birth name likely began with an "L", & she picked Lori to handle accidents where she began to accidentally sign her birth name, & could recover by writing "Lori". Still another noted that "Erica" was the name of a character of a popular tv soap opera in the late 1980s. And saving the most trivial observation for last, "Kennedy" is a common Irish-American family name, very few of whom are even distantly related to the president.

If we knew more about her, I would eagerly make some intelligent guesses, or even suggest some plausible theories, why she picked this name. But I've tried to be cautious about this case, & except for noting that this name was her intentional choice, & must have some significance to her, I'll leave it to the rest of you to speculate further.

I am familiar with the paper chase method, and I think I know why she used BST as a cutout identity. The pc method became popular during the Vietnam War as a way to cleanly get a new identity and avoid the draft. Problem was that too many people were doing it, and it became risky, because another identity seeker may have been to that graveyard first. In addition, some people were using it for other things besides a new start; there was a traveler's check scam that went on (I won't describe it here) that required a series of new identities.
FLEK was doing this very late in the game. I think that the pc was being used very little by the late 70's, let alone ten years later. I think that she knew that the BST name and birthdate might turn up hot, so it was safest (though not without risk) to resurrect BST for a few weeks to create a new, totally clean "person" with no past and no ties to her original identity.

 

[sunnynz]

Can you post an image of the receipt? The link that was posted on the documents site is no longer working.

Here's a screen grab from the photos thread - sorry not the best quality. If you can't read the name, let me know.